[conspire] Bad hardware category HP Printers [was Re: Bad hardware categories (wasL: July 13th CABAL meeting cancelled)]]

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Tony Godshall (togo at of.net):

> > PCL6 is also useful to look for.  Both PCL6 and PostScript suggests a
> > winner.
> 
> But beware "PCL6e" aka "HP sells PCL out" aka "PCL in name only" aka
> "they call it PCL but its really a winprinter"
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCL6
> 
> Oddly, PCL5e is OK (same article, scroll up)

Thank you for mentioning that, Tony.  I really had no idea.

In fairness to HP, these _aren't_ lobotomised printers the way classic
winprinters are.  I.e., HP isn't building a software emultaion of a
printer's normal hardware engine into the MS-Windows print drivers and
thereby offloading all printing processing load onto the host computer.

Classic winprinters are a ripoff even for Windows users.  These PCL6e 
things, by contrast, grab the Windows graphics primitives (Microsoft GDI
data[0]) that MS-Windows is already generating.  So, arguably they are a
good design for MS-Windows users.[1]

In any event, my original criterion helps, here:  If the printer's
literature says 'Microsoft Windows' and is conspicuously silent about
everything else, you should strongly suspect a Windows-dependent
printer.  That precept should prevent you from accidentally buying a
'PCL6e' aka 'PCL 6 Enhanced' (gag!) printer even if you knew nothing
about what PCL6e means.


[0] Apparently in the long term, they want to promote a successor
rendering model called GDI+, but aren't all there yet.

[1] As the Wikipedia article on PCL points out, the effect is exactly
analogous to connecting a PostScript printer to an OS that images using
Display PostScript, as NeXTStep did.